


crossing paths

by V_e_s_a_n_u_s



Series: Whumptober 2018 [22]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Cages, Captured, Chains, Escape, F/M, Prison, Purple Hawke, Restraints, Sassy, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 15:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16410980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_e_s_a_n_u_s/pseuds/V_e_s_a_n_u_s
Summary: Day number 25 of #whumptober! Prompt today was restraints!Garrett finds himself chained to a wall in a prison cell. Across the room, also chained up, is someone he did not expect.





	crossing paths

“So…” Garrett said, hands hanging limply from the shackles holding his arms above his head, “Are you  _ really  _ just going to leave me hanging?”

The guard didn’t seem to appreciate the joke, narrowing his eyes at the man dangling a foot off of the ground with increasing hatred. He turned on his heel and marched off, leaving the barred door open, tantalisingly out of reach. 

“Tough crowd,” Hawke commented, watching the guard leave and listening until all sounds of his footsteps had disappeared down the hall. When it finally fell silent, he started drawing on his mana to cast a cold spell on the manacles. It was tricky to do in this position, and he was finding it a little difficult to breathe with his arms so high, but he managed it. The hissing of metal freezing bubbled in the air until it was suddenly interrupted. 

“Hey, you!” An old croaky voice made out, from across the room. Garrett froze, squinting into the darkness. As his eyes began to adjust, he could see the older woman crumpled in the opposite cell. She wasn’t hanging from the wall like Hawke, just shackled and bound and tossed into the cell, “What are you doing?”   
Hawke grinned at her, “Promise to keep a secret?”

“Not like I’m going anywhere anytime soon,” she replied, adjusting herself slowly on the floor, her joints creaking audibly in protest. 

“Well, you see...” he said, winking, and the woman could see the flash of his grin in the dim from across the room, “No one in Kirkwall knows I’m a mage. They didn’t even consider the need for enchanted manacles so…” he tensed his hands again, the soft glow emanating from his palms as the frost shot out of them, “I can get out of here in no time… I think.”   
The woman was grumbling in her cell, “Blighted apostates,” she was saying, “Nothing but trouble, from my experience. Only have their own interests in mind.”

Garrett heard it, even if she hadn’t meant him to. Maybe he  _ had  _ meant him to. “Not if I have anything to say about it. I’m mostly trying to help. Unless you’re, I don’t know, a slaver,” he paused, glancing over at the woman, “You’re  _ not  _ a slaver, right?”

“Bah,” she scoffed, air whistling past her teeth, “If I had a job like that, do you really think I’d be in here?”

Hawke cocked her head at her, “You’d end up in a place like this sooner or later. Or dead, if I had anything to say about it.”   
“At least that’s a life. Better than this crap.”

Garrett paused for a moment, turning back to his manacles, as if he wasn’t really interested, “Why are you here, then?”

“And why does  _ that _ matter?” The woman snapped back. He could feel her glare on him through the darkness, eyes glinting with a vehemence. 

Hawke sighed, “It doesn’t,” he pulled on the chains above his head. He could feel the cold metal groan under the pressure but they didn’t break. Not yet. He went back to freezing them, colder this time. It required more focus so he didn’t accidentally slip and end up losing his hand from frostbite. 

It went silent for a long time. 

The woman, in the other cell across the room, was sitting quietly, staring down at her hands. Her wrists were thin and the manacles had left deep indents and bruises where she’d tugged at them for years. These weren’t the same arms, the same hands as those that could wield a sword so many years ago. She no longer had the tell-tale callouses on her fingers, none of the strength or muscle mass in her arms. This place had aged her. Aged her beyond her years. The stress, the strain, the starvation: they all exacted a heavy toll. 

She missed who she was before. She missed who she was  _ with _ back then, too. She wondered if he was still out there, looking for her. A broken smile tugged at her cracked lips as it always did when she thought of him. He’d probably moved on. His oath was fulfilled, his debt paid an age ago. He only stuck around because of her, and now that  _ she  _ wasn’t around, ever since she’d been stuck in here, he’d probably left. Back to his homeland, perhaps? 

They’d played with restraints back then, here and there. Light-hearted little play-things, soft silk ribbons or occasionally just hands, the hands of whoever was topping that night pinning the other down. It was fun. 

Now she felt the weight of the chains on her wrists and wondered how it had ever been fun in the first place. 

She hadn’t meant to be harsh to the man, dangling on the opposite side of the room. It was just that being alone all this time… it made her bitter. When the only people you talk to are the people keeping you here, it’s difficult to retain some manners. She didn’t want to be cruel, not like them. 

She wanted to be like she was back then. When she would bring along every outcast and tag along with her, arms open as wide as her smile. She missed that person. So, after a long period of quiet, only the metallic hiss of magic in the air, she spoke up.

“I was a Grey Warden,” she said, “And I screwed over a lot of people in my job. These were some of the people I pissed off.”

“How does a Warden piss of the dwarven Carta?” Hawke asked in disbelief. 

“Apparently it’s frowned upon to kill their leaders.”

Hawke frowned, pausing momentarily, glancing across the room. Could it…? No, it couldn’t be. No one had seen the Hero of Ferelden since the Blight ended. And there’s no way she’d be in a dwarven prison in the Free Marches. But still… it was sounding familiar to him.

He turned back to his manacles, playing it off as if he didn’t think anything of it, “Also frowned upon if you kill all their members too… Guilty!” He flashed another grin in the darkness, “Ooh, I think this is it!” He shouted with glee. 

He pulled on the iron around his wrist once. Hard. Nothing happened. He tried a second time, and a third, and a fourth and then suddenly -  _ CRACK!  _ The metal shattered and the man fell tumbling forwards. Hawke landed face first on the stone floor with a painful crunch and a groan muffled by the ground. 

He stuck a thumbs up in the air as he lay there, recovering, before slowly beginning to stand. He noticed pretty quickly that his nose was bleeding, and then realised that’s what must have made the crunching sound when he hit the floor. It started to throb, pain shooting out from his nose in rhythm with his heartbeat. He hoped it wasn’t broken. He liked his face, thank you very much.

When Garrett was standing fully, he marched out of his cell through the open door. The woman was looking at him peculiarly, as if judging what he was going to do next. Would he leave without a second thought? Would he save her? Would a guard walk in and kill them both? She didn’t know. 

Garrett knew, though. He was just that type of person: beneath that sarcastic and downright rude exterior, he had a heart of gold, as he was incredibly fond of informing everyone of. He melted through the lock on the cage with a simple fire spell (no matter how much Varric told him that lockpicking was important, if he could just  _ melt  _ through the lock, it didn’t matter what state the lock was in. He’d be telling the dwarf about this later.) 

As the glow of the flames lit up around the lock, he saw that the old woman in the cell wasn’t as old as he’d thought. She looked young, just tired and dirty and incredibly thin and bony, and is if she’d been in the same position for a very long time. The thing that really surprised him, though, was that she wasn’t a woman - she was an  _ elf.  _ Not that it changed anything, he just hadn’t expected it. 

And it started to become a more solid belief in his mind that this  _ was _ Kallian Tabris, Hero of Ferelden. But could it  _ really  _ be her? There was only one way to find out.

He opened the cell door and knelt down next to her with a grin. “What’s your name, then?” He asked, placing his hands over the manacles over her thin, bony wrists.  _ Maker, how long had she been in here? _

“What’s it to you?”

“I’d like to know the name of the person that I may or may not be rescuing. I take it you  _ do  _ want to be rescued, yes?”

The woman narrowed her eyes at him, “Call me Kallian,” she said shortly, large eyes softening.

“Garrett,” he replied, with a knowing grin, “Pleasure to be rescuing you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! Let me know if you did ;)


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